It’s a beautiful day
Don’t let it get away
It was about 6 AM on Monday, November 11, 2002 that my wife and I climbed into the car and began the drive to the hospital. She was nine months pregnant with our first child together, a baby girl to be named Rachel Elizabeth. The complications my wife experienced over the past month led her to schedule an induction under the false pretenses that my company was sending me overseas. The doctor bought it and the date was scheduled for the one-year anniversary of our first date.
You’re on the road by you’ve got no destination
You’re in the mud, in the maze of her imagination
You love this town even if it doesn’t ring true
You’ve been all over and it’s been all over you
She was conceived in Los Angeles or perhaps it was that weekend in Big Bear. We were married months later and then I lost my job. Living in an expensive Westside apartment with our seven-year-old daughter, we contemplated how we would make it. She said, “Let’s move to Kansas City. It’s cheaper and we’d be near your family.” She was six months pregnant, she was seven and I was nervous as hell. Like reverse-pioneers, we headed east.
What you don’t have your don’t need it now
What you don’t know you can feel it somehow
What you don’t have you don’t need it now
You don’t need it now, you don’t need it now
I remember turning onto that final stretch of I-35 that morning and slipping the CD into the stereo. I looked at her glowing, weary face and smiled as the guitar’s intro started. I saw a smile form. I knew it would be my baby girl’s song and when she heard it, so did she. She touched the top of my hand and I let go of the stick, turned it over and locked fingers with hers.
Three years later, I see at my little princess, a spitting image of her father, and recall those first joyful tears from that day. They come back sometimes when I watch her, wondering how I could be so lucky to have someone so beautiful. This little girl who is growing faster than I am ready. That little girl who makes me laugh, who makes me proud and melts my heart.
Happy 3rd Birthday, Rachel-belle! Je t’aime ma petite ange. Bonne nuit!
It was a beautiful day
Beautiful day
Don't let it get away
